A winter storm slammed into the US Northeast with howling winds and frigid cold, dumping nearly 2 feet (60 centimetres) of snow on some areas and whipping up blizzard-like conditions. Thirteen deaths have been blamed on the winter weather.

By midday on Friday (local time), about 2200 flights were cancelled nationwide, according to the aviation tracking website FlightAware.com. Most were in New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago and Washington, DC.

Governors in New York and New Jersey declared states of emergency, urging residents to stay at home. Hundreds of schools were shut down in Boston and New York, extending the holiday break for tens of thousands of students.

"This is nothing to be trifled with," New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said. "People should seriously consider staying in their homes."

Officials from the upper Midwest to New England were preparing for another arctic blast over the next few days that could be even worse.

The storm has led to at least 13 deaths as it sweeps across the eastern half of the US Slick roads have caused traffic deaths in Michigan, Kentucky, Indiana and Illinois.

A massive pile of salt fell on a worker at a Philadelphia storage facility, killing him. And authorities say a woman with Alzheimer's disease froze to death after she wandered away from her rural New York home.